The present study assumes: that (a) the young adults who recall their mothers as being low warm will have greater tendency towards negative self-esteem than the adults who recall-their mothers as being high warm; and (b) significant mean differences in P ARQ as well as Negative Self-Esteem scores will exist between young adults recalling their mothers as being low warm as compared to the adults reporting their mothers as being high warm. The sample of the present investigation consists of 301 male and female undergraduates drawn from university students in Nigeria. All the four scales designed to measure the perceived parental acceptance-rejection ~re used in this study. The results indicated that the young adults' perceptions of maternal low warmth' was positively correlated with young adults' own assessments of low-esteem. It further indicated that young adults recalling-their mothers as being low warm had significantly higher PARQ and Negative Self-Esteem scores than the adults reporting their mothers as being high warm. The findings of this research are consistent with the Universalist postulates of parental acceptance and rejection theory (Rohner, 1975).

Declining moral standards and increasing rates of crime and corruption are commonly reported in the modern world, and Nigeria is no exception. The present study was undertaken to investigate the nature and variation of moral values in Nigerian adults, particularly as related to the context in which moral judgements are made. It also looked for relationships between moral values and other sociopsychological dimensions, notably internal-external locus of control, and traditionalism versus modernism. Subjects comprised thirteen women and twelve men, most from western and south western Nigeria, who were attending a. six-month media broadcasting course which claimed to sensitise an awareness of topical moral issues. They were given three testing sessions at the start, middle and end of their course. Each session included six moral dilemmas based on Nigerian everyday life and experience. Measures of locus of control and traditional-modern attitudes were administered on the second and third sessions, while biographical information was collected on the first. Anonymity of respondents was ensured. Answers to questions on the moral dilemmas were categorised as self-centred, society-centred or person-centred, a scheme derived from consideration of Freudian and Piagetian theory. A fourth category, called 'evasive', was also found necessary. Results showed no significant variation in moral dilemma scores due to course exposure. Most of the 394 answers were categorised as society-centred (194), followed by 114 person-centred and 66 self-centred. Twenty fell into the 'evasive' category. As predicted, a significant correlation was found between traditional-modern and moral dilemma scores, modernism being associated with more person-centred responses. There was no correlation between morality and locus of control scores. A significant finding is that moral judgements varied according to the nature of the dilemmas themselves, many favouring society-centred, some self-centred, others person-centred, and yet others evasive responses. It is concluded that moral judgements are subject to influence by situational context, the interpretation of which may vary according to culture-specific values and beliefs. Problems arising from the association between individualism and modernisation are also discussed, with particular reference to moral education programmes.

The aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between the integration of women in decision-making processes and their operational thinking abilities. The assumption was that the opportunity to make decisions or to participate in decision-making processes affects positively the operational abilities as defined by Piaget. Four contrasting groups of 20 to 50 non-literate women with the same cultural background participated in this research. They were women, heads of household (single, divorced or widowed) with an income-generating activity, i.e. women who have to care for themselves and their children, contrasted with housewives with no economic activities, but restricted to their, house-work job. Each group was further subdivided into urban arid rural women. Each participant was interviewed, following a questionnaire to assess the extent of their involvement in decision-making processes and was also tested on her operational thinking abilities by use of a battery of psychological tests. Moreover, a significant positive correlation was found between these two variables: the integration in decision-making and the lever of the operational thinking. The results show also a significant difference when comparing the two urban groups of different marital status but also when one compares the two heads of household groups of different residential areas. The results have shown that the participation in decision-making was highest for urban heads of households who also scored highest in the psychological test. The results lead to the conclusion that women who are in a position to make decisions and who exercise this power develop, in so doing, their operational thinking abilities., The relevance of such finding for countries where women are still very poorly integrated in national development and are considered as unable to make decisions due to their inadequate reasoning abilities is important.

A battery of seven creativity measures tapping both fluency and originality was administered to 320 Caribbean 16-year.olds to inquire into factors that make up creativity and also to test the validity of two author-designed non-verbal creativity measures - Fingerprints and Incomplete Drawings. Factor analysis of the data indicated the presence of two factors - A Verbal Factor and a Non-Verbal Factor. The new author-designed tests also emerged as valid measures of Creativity.

Working on the field of the Brazilian traditional candomble, the authors analyze the consecration rites of an assemblage of objects, which constitute the ""seat"" of personal divinities. As they are considered as the residence of each one of the priest's orishas, the ""seats"" concretely reproduce the mythical configuration which determines his life and personality. Born upon initiation, living and dying with the priest, these objects may be seen as tangible testimony of the mechanisms of mutual construction of the initiated and his community. From the point of view of the psychology of culture, the ""seat of the gods"" may be looked at as one of the ritual apparatus which allow the integration of the multiple aspects of personality, in a peculiarly dynamic synthesis.

Specific factors of population socialization were studied in one rural and one urban married sample in Malawi, The wives and husbands were interviewed on their socio-economic background and different fertility motives, the results and rural-urban fertility differentials are descriptionbed and analysed in a tri-dimensional model of population socialization: authority, group, body-mind environment. In the authority dimension the following socialization factors ;were identified: (1) continuity, tradition, security, (2) parenthood satisfaction, (3) role motivation, (4) religion; in the group dimension: (5) social status from children, (6) peer pressure on child bearing, (7) goal incentives from children; in the body-mind-environment dimension: ,(8) expression of love and affection, (9) sexual behaviour, (10) breast feeding, (11) use of contraceptive techniques, ideal number of children, education, (12) prioritizing economic versus psychosocial values, costs of children. As a conclusion, the social value of children or the reproductive motive may be rechanneled into alternative sources of satisfaction in order to decrease the high fertility rate in Malawi. Those alternative sources of satisfaction are indicated in some of the motives in the urban sample, e.g. educational, occupational, technological and economic achievement, better housing: more leisure and self-development.